


Honey, Honey

by beanarie



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Gen, Prompt Fic, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2017-12-10 17:46:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 7,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/788421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beanarie/pseuds/beanarie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt fics and snippets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. LBD crossover

**Author's Note:**

> I write in tiny little bursts that I feel guilty posting on their own.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1/2013; for deannaoftrebond; Sherlock and Joan investigate the mysterious murder of George Wickham

Lydia Bennet is sporting flaming red hair, blue eyes rimmed with red, and an adolescent tabby cat clutched in her arms while she sits on an overstuffed couch. 

"Let's try that again, but this time without the lie," Sherlock says. He sets aside the coffee Mrs. Bennet had given him. "I've watched your video blog. George Wickham was a manipulator and a con man. Possibly an abuser as well."

Watson tilts her head. "Lydia, did he ever hurt you?"

She cuts her eyes to the side, scoffing softly. "No, _God_. Of course not. What are you, nuts?"

Once they're in the car, Joan sighs. "I don't think she was playing us," she says. "She still loves the guy."

"Hm, close. She thinks _he_ loved _her_." He shakes himself a bit, discarding a layer of melancholy. "Either way, this avenue is apparently closed. She never saw his true colors. Not much point in murdering someone before you have motive."

"So. Georgiana Darcy?"

"Mysterious departure from the swim team, her brother's disproportionate anger toward the victim..." He smiles, approving. "Yes, I think so, Watson. Well spotted."


	2. Sherlock + Joan + baby (not theirs)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 9/30/12; for night_reveals; Joan and Sherlock, accidental baby acquisition

Sherlock lies on his back, shooting the ceiling with an air rifle to study the dust pattern left behind. Joan Watson sweeps into the room with an armload of toddler that she quickly deposits on the floor.

"Explain this," she says, falling to the sofa.

Sherlock drops the bb gun and rolls onto his stomach. "Um, Caucasian female. About fifteen..." He pauses as the baby opens her mouth to laugh at him. "No, seventeen months old. Well looked after. Seems to share DNA with-" He scrambles to sit up. "Oh. Watson, I'm sorry."

"Explain this," she insists, her voice thick. Her eyes are red. "You knew. You knew my dad had fathered a child. How could you possibly have known?"

"Necklace," he mumbles, chewing on his thumbnail.

"What?"

"The necklace you wore for the benefit last month," he says, and he gets to his feet. "Could have been a personal indulgence. You do spend on yourself from time to time. But the color. Red. You're far more fond of blue. Could have been a gift, but anyone who would have given you something so awfully expensive doubtless would have kept your preferences in mind. Factor in your trip to Queens the weekend prior and obviously you'd borrowed it from your mum."

"Go on."

"Does it really matter?" he sighs, and her eyes widen with growing anger. "The cat is out of the bag, is all I meant."

"I'd like to know," she says. She crosses her legs and taps her fingernails against her thigh. "If I'm going to avoid getting blindsided by things like this, I need to learn."

"Well. As I said it's very expensive. The cut of the rubies, the arrangement, indicates a certain breed of jewelers, who don't any of them work cheap. It's a guilt gift, clearly, and that's common enough for someone in your father's situation, second chances and whatnot. However, again, it is very, very expensive. Your mother has, or had, no idea just how much. Otherwise she never would have loaned it out, at least not without hiring someone to accompany you and ensure that it got back to her in one piece."

Joan absently touches her fingertips to a patch of skin a few inches below the base of her throat.

"Overcompensation. Secret overcompensation. He was making up for a crime he had yet to confess to. And given his proclivities, either he killed one of his mistresses--highly unlikely--or he..."

The baby stumbles over a pile of notebooks and falls to her knees with a confused cry. Joan picks her up, making sympathetic noises and patting her on the back until she stops whimpering.

"This is not the ideal stomping ground for a young child," he says.

"Yeah, well, she's-"

"Ill. The mother is, I mean." He picks up an empty soda can, a wax apple, and balled up pair of socks, and he begins to juggle. The baby is transfixed. "I could tell you how I-"

"Thanks, I've got this one," Joan says. Her half sister is still and quiet in her lap. "Former doctor, after all. My father's tastes ran to middle-aged women. The older the mother is at the time of pregnancy, the greater the chance of complications."

"Top marks," he says. "Not dying, though. Just in need of an extra set of hands. So she dropped little..."

"Gwendolyn."

"Gwen off at Daddy's, when unsuspecting Step-Mum happened to be home. And Step-Mum called half-sister to take the child for the day, thus allowing her to confront Daddy with no interruptions."

"Top marks," she echoes.


	3. Bell + Sherlock + Joan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1/2013; for onetimelessmelody; Faint

"Cologne please."

"What?"

"The cologne you carry somewhere on your person, I'd like you to hand it over."

"You're saying I stink," Marcus concludes.

"I am saying you take care to ensure your scent remains uniform throughout the day," Holmes says. "Absent of any and all value judgments." He stretches out his hand and clears his throat pointedly.

"Fine." Marcus tries not to take it personally when Holmes puts the bottle close to Miss Watson's face and she immediately flinches. 

Watson wrinkles her nose. "How did I get down here?" she says.

"You clocked out for a second," Marcus says, half concerned Holmes would make up some outrageous lie to mess with her. "You feel okay?"

"You coughed twenty-three times this morning," Holmes says.

"You count my coughs," Watson says.

"I count everything." Holmes doesn't look even a little embarrassed. "It's just that this particular number is germane to our current state of being."

Watson sits up, her hand pressing on her forehead. "Tell him I'm okay. He'll shut up if he hears it from an outside source."

"-Despite the heat being in perfect working order, you wore a jumper in between your customary football jersey and robe."

"Sorry." Marcus gives Watson a shrug. "I'm not the one who used to be a doctor. Pretty sure my opinion means even less than yours."

"-And you've been moving as though-"

She raises her free hand. "Oh my God. If you could never talk about my walk again, that would be awesome."

"Whoa, what happened here?" The captain squints down at them. "I'm on my way out the door and I've got people telling me you two are engaged in some kind of public display of affection with Miss Watson."

Watson lets out a weak laugh. 

"You know I don't swing Miss Watson's way," Marcus says, and Holmes stares, frozen, like somebody flipped his off switch right there. 

"Really?" he says. "I had _no_ idea."

"Yeah. Even smart guys' brains can be full of heteronormative bullshit," Marcus says generously. Holmes nods, and says nothing. He gets like that when he's wrong. Admit the mistake, and then move on really quickly. 

"And the part where I asked what's going on," Gregson reminds them.

The two of them help Watson to her feet. She's pale. Not wobbling much, though she's leaning against Holmes, and he's letting her. "Think Miss Watson's got the flu, Cap."

"Well, let's get her a ride home, Detective. This season's strain is nothing to mess around with. I keep getting alerts about it." He turns to Watson. "You do look rough. You want I should call EMS?"

"Please don't," she says, under her breath.


	4. Joan, Sherlock, and Connect Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 5/2013; heartandsleeves; "Holmes and Watson play Connect Four. Chaos ensues." I changed it to after the chaos has ensued.

"Didn't think I'd find you out of bed. We only returned a few hours ago."

Joan raises her head. "Had some energy to burn off, I guess." It hurts to talk, so she keeps her voice low. "Found this in the dollar store around the corner. Haven't seen one of these since my pediatric rotation." Joan rubs a blue game piece between her thumb and forefinger before she drops it into the board.

"Watson," he says.

"Listen, I'm awake. Deal with it." There's more heat in the words than the tone.

He takes the other seat at the table, eyeing her scarf like he can see under it if he just tries hard enough. She continues creating a haphazard pattern on the yellow grid with red and blue disks.

Sherlock pushes the sleeves of his cardigan up to his forearms, covering his wince with a transparently sunny smile. The finger-shaped bruises creeping down his hands and past his wrists match the ones around her throat. Or so she assumes; she can't bring herself to look. "Bit warm in here, no?" 

"Sherlock, just-" She lets out a forceful breath. "Play this stupid game with me."

"I don't know the rules," he says.

Joan lifts one corner of her mouth, and teaches him.


	5. Post finale tag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allistair and Sherlock have dinner and catch up.

After they are seated by the hostess, the first thing Allistair does is insist the meal is on Holmes. "Because after all, you owe me, so very much. If I were the type to belabor the point by actually listing examples, and if I were to rank them in descending order of egregiousness, I would start with the time you abducted me on the way to an audition."

"You chose to go with me that day," Holmes points out.

"Not disputing that. I'm merely highlighting the scope of my sacrifice. I could have worked with Tom Stoppard, you know."

Holmes pulls a face and adjusts the strap on his sling.

Allistair picks up his water glass. "I hear your phantom very nearly killed you." The lightness of his tone is in and of itself an indicator of deep concern. That their communication has evolved in such a way is Holmes fault and no one else's. Allistair has learned over the years what overt mother-henning will get him.

Holmes squints at a hint of a spot on his fork. "What's a few bullet holes between friends, really?"

"Thankfully I can't speak on that matter with any authority. Although with you, it did come close, once or twice."

"You actors and your over-fondness for hyperbole. That gunman didn't begin firing until a full five minutes after our departure." Holmes doesn't ask about Allistair's life. He won't pretend the amount of times Allistair's clothes have been laundered don't prove he still hasn't found a long term partner on this side of the pond, that the loss that precipitated the move overseas remains a gaping hole he strives to fill. Allistair hasn't been happy since Basil died, Holmes knows. But he is very good at pretending.

One thing Holmes will never understand; why Allistair did not have more success as an actor.

"So how's your Miss Watson?"

Holmes tries out numerous descriptors and discards them all. "Brilliant," he says, heartfelt. She gives him sidelong glances every so often, afraid he'll break apart in front of her. Which is fair. He's come close so many times over these past months he's lost count.

Holmes sees a flash of a serrated blade, finally remembering where he saw it. Detective Bell will need to be updated immediately. The fingers of his unencumbered hand twitch and he reaches for his jacket.

"You do plan on leaving your credit card. A deal is a deal." Allistair dips a piece of bread in a puddle of olive oil. "Don't worry. I'll ensure its safe return." Allistair doesn't ever ask Holmes to stay. He knows he'll eventually come back.


	6. Sherlock + Joan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a bit of shameless h/c and bedside angst based on [my last au gifset](http://beanarie.tumblr.com/post/63706802896/elementary-au-inspired-by-x-detective-bell-has).

Watson is dreaming. Sherlock had been concerned at first that they were whimpers of pain, but the layers upon layers of medication make that option highly unlikely.

Suddenly she opens her eyes, staring at him without seeing. "You were shot," she says, and she clutches his hand.

He manages to keep his wince to himself. "No. That was you, actually." The words come easier than expected. It's less difficult to acknowledge what happened now that she's awake. 

Of course it had been at their home, and not some back alley in Queens or lower Manhattan or anywhere other than a place that had suffered far too many violations already. Today it was six shots through the window. Watson face-down, bleeding from the abdomen, shoulder, and a graze along her upper arm. (The rug is, by his estimation, completely unsalvageable. He'll have to ask Ms. Hudson to pick up a replacement some time in the next few days.)

"Sherlock?" She's still not quite present, her gaze wide and unfocused.

"Let me get your mother," he says, half-rising. "She's been very worried."

She takes in a deep breath that breaks into a sob. "I'm sorry."

He falls back into the chair, undone. "Where are you?" he asks softly. The monitors will start going mad any moment. Medical staff will come running, heralding a lot of strident, overlapping voices and possibly more sedation. She deserves better than to be greeted back to the world in such a manner. He reclaims her hand and gives it a squeeze. "Come now, Watson. Wake up."

Dreams are often adapted from waking thoughts. He could very well be gaining insight into what she was thinking as she fell to the gunman. That he'd been hit as well. Or that she would be leaving him behind...

(The last time she had one foot out the door, he risked his life and his freedom on the nebulous promise of revenge. He freely admitted as much.)

Sherlock has never examined the enormity of Watson's sense of responsibility toward him. She chose to remain for herself, her own professional fulfillment, but it wasn't only that. It was never only that. The way she looks after him, instinctive and tireless, is not something he's ever wanted to pick apart for fear that closer inspection would diminish it in some way. He simply attempts to reciprocate when circumstances allow, to the best of his limited ability. (Reaching the 59th Street Clinic and circling in front for nearly ten minutes. His pulse still accelerates slightly in memory, over a year later.)

She shakes her head, blinks. Some of the disorientation clears.

"Watson?"

Then she says it again, helplessly. "I'm sorry." And this time, she's apologizing for _crying_ , for not being able to throw off the nightmare and the myriad chemicals running through her system in order to pull herself together the way she has so deftly in the past.

His pocket vibrates. A text from someone offering something that doesn't matter nearly as much as what is happening right now. He leans forward, places his hand on her uninjured shoulder, and waits until he has her eyes. "It's _all right_ ," he says, calmly and firmly.

She's asleep again in minutes. He takes his handkerchief and some water and wipes the drying tear tracks from her cheeks. Then he goes into the hallway and lets the wall take some of his weight. 

How does she do this time and time again?

The phone buzzes once more. _Just saw the brownstone on News 1 saying it was the scene of a shooting???_

Sherlock almost smirks as he presses the call button. 

Alfredo picks up after a single truncated ring. "Hey. Hey, you guys okay?"

"Watson's been shot." He pinches the bridge of his nose, forcing himself to elaborate. "Came through surgery fine. She was just awake for a short while. The doctors are optimistic."

"Okay," Alfredo says after a moment, taking it in. "And you?"

"Watson's been shot," Sherlock repeats. There's no other way to answer that question.


	7. All in the Family end tag drabble

"You know, I expect this kind of garbage from him," Joan said.

From her tone, she may as well have been commenting on the weather. The comparison was strangely fitting, since the temperature in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees. Marcus blinked over at her end of the table. She had her nose down, as she flipped through the contents of a file.

"People see how he treats me sometimes, and it looks to them like I let him," she went on. "They don’t know how much worse he was in the beginning. They don’t see how much energy it takes every day making sure he doesn’t go back to that, constantly picking my battles and drawing line after line in the sand. They don’t see him actively fighting not to regress and to do better. They have no idea what that means for him, or for me." She closed the file and opened another. "They just think I’m okay with being an occasional punching bag."

"God, Joan. I’m- I’m sorry."

She gave a short, humorless laugh. “I’m so tired of sorries I have to beg for,” she said, almost to herself. She looked up, and Marcus held his breath. “Just don’t do it again.”


	8. Joan + her biological father, years ago

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for depiction of mental illness, specifically schizophrenia

Dawn the security guard fished through Joan’s belongings. “So this one’s donations,” she said, closing up the black garbage bag.

Joan stepped through the metal detector and joined Dawn and Manny at the desk. “Yeah, uh, I figured your guys might need coats, so I did a drive at the hospital. Is Lydia still in? I wanted to make sure they’re okay.”

Manny put the receiver back on the phone. “Our friend might be on his way down,” he said to Dawn. “He’s arguing with Hines on the fourth floor right now and he’s getting heated. Keeps talking about how he needs to leave. We’re supposed to monitor him closely and call 911 for any bizarre behavior. Case manager’s hoping for an EDP.”

"Hoping for it?" Joan asked, butting in. That was the code for involuntary admission to the hospital. "So he’s not complying with treatment."

"He’s not aggressive or anything, but he’s refusing to engage with psych and he didn’t bring any meds with him, so he’s not seeing anyone on the outside. Also he hasn’t showered or changed his clothes since he came in two weeks ago."

Dawn sucked air through her teeth and looked at Joan. “You know, no offense? But when an old Chinese dude walks in here, I assume he’s not gonna be this much trouble.”

Joan dropped her purse. “Fourth floor, you said?”

She walked down the hall, following the raised voices, knowing instantly that it was him. She took a breath, preparing herself. He sounded somewhat lucid, though agitated. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad.

He froze when she came into view. Hines, the security guard he was arguing with, took a step to the side.

"Hey," she said. "Hi. It’s been a little while."

"Joanie?" He blinked, then his face crumpled as he waved her away. "Joanie, baby, I don't want you here. You know I missed your birthday and I need time to get you a present."

She closed more of the distance between them, while Hines watched warily. “No, shh, you didn’t. It’s next month, remember?” He usually believed her when she said that, and this time was no different. He immediately calmed down. “You've got weeks, okay? We can still spend time together today. But first, you think it’d be all right if you took a shower?”

"I took a shower today," he insisted. "While I was in there they broke into my locker and took my pictures. They gave me back someone else’s pictures. I keep trying to show people to see if they know who they belong to so I can get mine back, but no one will look at them. They have no compassion or professional competency in this place. I need to go."

"I’ll keep an eye on your locker," she promised, worried now, though she didn’t let it show. If he left, he’d end up on the street in twenty degree weather. She already knew he wouldn’t come home with her. "No one will get in. And when you come out, we can go down the block and get some fried chicken, and I can take a look at those pictures. Sound good?"

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m partial to honey barbecue.”

"I know you are. It’s my favorite, too." Hines silently pointed to indicate where the room was and Joan tried to steer him in that direction. "Let’s go get your towels."

He turned around, changing course for the stairwell. “My showers take over seventy minutes," he said. It was true; he never went outside until he felt he was completely, a hundred percent dry. " If we go out after, I might miss sign-in. I don't want to lose my bed. I'd have to start over someplace with even worse standards than this.”

Joan reconfigured herself to match his steps, shaking her head. “Sure, we'll go now. Whatever you want.”

He stopped with his hand on the doorknob and he looked at her. “You’re not taking me to the hospital, Joanie.”

"No, Baba. I promise." His skeptical squint was justified, but she caved only on the inside. "No one’s taking you to the hospital tonight."

"Never again."

A lump growing in her throat, she adjusted the grimy woolen hat on his head. “How about some dinner, okay?”


	9. Joan/Marcus/Marcus's clawfoot tub

Marcus pulled his t-shirt over his head and dropped it just outside the bathroom door before he entered. “Hey.”

Joan didn’t open her eyes and patently refused to lift her head from the edge of the tub. “Hey.” She went silent until his shadow fell on her face. “If I were to marry you for your bathtub,” she drawled, “that wouldn’t make me a completely terrible person, would it? I mean, there would be other reasons or whatever.”

He reached out, using his thumb to smooth out the lines across her forehead, and she smiled.

"I don’t think I could lift my arms if you paid me," she confessed, exhaustion making the words slide into each other and adding a random laugh at the tail end.

He went in for quick kiss, then said quietly into her ear, “You want me to wash your hair?”

"Oh, _God_ ," she moaned.

He kissed her again and made a grab for the shampoo.


	10. a very angsty not!fic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for involuntary drug use, suicide, mental illness, and inventing technology on the fly.

It takes Sherlock very little time to recognize that something isn't right. He's done every drug under the sun at least once, and several for extended periods of time, so he knows how what this feeling is. His head is on wrong and the world has tilted on its axis, but the last two years of recovery conditioning win out. When Joan doesn't return his texts, he takes himself to the ER and he asks for help. Bell takes some Major Crimes guys to search his apartment and they find a device hidden inside the blender. Bell calls to let him know they found it and where, adding an aside that no one's been able to reach Joan all day.

Sherlock doesn't have much use for the blender. He used the pitcher to pour water in the coffee machine this morning; that was all. Joan uses the blender. Even though she moved out, she'll stop by after a run, whether he's there or not. She never took the trunk of cold cases with her. The piece of furniture that houses it is expensive and still his. Several times he's come home to find the blender a few milliliters removed from its previous position and more empty space in the fridge's produce drawer. He's thrown a complaint or two her way, but deep down it's comforting, these reminders that she hasn't broken away entirely, that her life is still entwined with his, even if she mostly resides in another location.

He's never thought of it this way in a conscious sense, but he basically keeps the blender for her.

Sherlock checks himself out of the hospital while the doctor are still waiting on the results of some blood-work, with Bell and Gregson yelling at him to stay put and trust that they'll find her, and he says YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. SHE HAS SCHIZOPHRENIA IN HER IMMEDIATE FAMILY. THIS IS LITERALLY HER WORST NIGHTMARE. 

Since shortly after he got the blender back from this repair shop on Flatbush Avenue, he's known that she's been hiding something from him. The problem is she's rarely not hiding _something_ from him, be it a negative opinion she doesn't think is worth starting an argument over or an issue in her personal life. He told himself if it continued or began to affect the work, he would deal with it somehow, but that hadn't happened yet. 

The blender was repaired almost a month ago. She's been bouncing in and out of a kaleidoscope for _weeks_.

Bell goes to her apartment and reports back. He's unsettled. The fridge is completely empty and smells of cleaner. All the garbage has been taken out. Every single thing is in its proper place, with the semi-exception of a knife, fork, and plate drying on the dish-rack next to a frying pan.

Sherlock tries the brownstone and she's there, smiling at him as she feeds Clyde. She's clearly altered, her pupils dilated and her movements sluggish. He theorizes that it's the prolonged exposure to the drug, though he isn't quite convinced. The cops outside with an ambulance on the way, he sits her down on the couch and he tells her it's okay. It's okay, this was a plot. You were being drugged. Watson, you're all right.

She frowns muzzily. She hasn't taken in a single word. "I never thought of my dad as strong," she says, and she sags against him. The warning bells in his head increase in volume until they're almost deafening. "But I think about how he lives, and I know I can't do it." She sort of laughs. "What does that say about me?"

He goes over all cold. "Watson, what have you done?"

He touches the side of her neck. Her pulse is thready. She covers his hand with hers as she struggles to take a deep breath. "I'm glad you're here," she says. Her voice breaks, and he realizes that she's scared. 

He shouts at her to stay awake. He demands she tell him what she took. 

"Please," he says.

She closes her eyes.

~

The third time she wakes up, she's connected to fewer monitors and her room doesn't have two other patients undergoing their own personal nadir. She's more aware of her surroundings than she had been before.

He thinks she might be ready to listen now, so he pours her a glass of water, and he tells her everything. 

When he's finished, she slides down past the pillows, her face pressed against the mattress, her arms held tight at her chest, and she cries. The guttural sobs are a mix of relief and shame, with a clear thread of remembered horror. She doesn't speak, and soon she's sleeping again. He doesn't touch her. He tries to take solace in the way she let go without asking him to leave the room first, but the truth is she could have simply not had the energy.


	11. slightly angsty not!fic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> originally posted on tumblr very early on in season 3

no but like

joan getting sucked into an all-nighter at the brownstone. and sherlock leaves her in the library to see how kitty’s progressing with the methods of loci experiment in the tv room. and he gets back and joan’s nodding off. and he sort of stops breathing for a second, but he skitters off to stare at the wall really quickly before she can notice that he noticed. nearly two years of empirical data (that flood back to him in a rush) tell him this stage could last a while, depending on variables like how stubborn she’s feeling at this particular moment and how long it’s been since she last ingested caffeine. eventually the book she was holding slips out of her hands and

and that’s it. she’s on her feet, shaking her head and trying to laugh at herself as she gets her things together to go.

sherlock says, “i-i could-” make up a bed for you, he almost goes on to say, and would have if not for the look she gives him.

joan drops her phone in her bag. a pained frown wrinkles her forehead and quickly disappears.

“i’ll see you tomorrow,” she says. she stops in the entryway, takes a half step backward in his direction, then walks out the door.


	12. the museum trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> charmingnotdarling prompted: [Sherlock, does in fact, take Kitty and Zachary to TMONH for the insect exhibit... Only Kitty texts Joan and asks her to meet them there]

Sherlock and the two budding lovebirds have barely crossed the threshold into the museum, the only things in sight being the slowly-moving queue in front of the ticket desk and the massive, brown skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus. If ever called on it, he’ll blame the roar that is the collective murmuring of the writhing mass of tourists confusing his senses, but it isn’t until he feels the distinctive vibrations of her ridiculously heeled footwear that he realizes Watson has settled into the space just behind him.

“Oh,” he says. “Of course.” Her only response is a tiny smirk and a nod at Kitty’s small wave.

Forty-five minutes later, they’re all four of them exiting the insect exhibit. Kitty looks straight at him and Watson, tells them thank you, then jogs a few steps to catch up with Zachary. She hands him the museum map and asks him if he has any interest in the space section.

“Sounded pretty final,” Watson says from his left side. Sherlock frowns, trying to drag his thoughts away from London as he watches them vanish by degrees. Watson brushes his elbow with her own. “Come on. I’ll buy you a hot dog.”

They take their cart offerings to the park. A young man on a skateboard wearing a t-shirt with a suit of armor on it blows the dust from a two year old memory. “We were meant to go to a museum once,” he says.

“Never got there in the end.” She doesn’t miss a beat. It’s possible she started reminiscing about that Arms and Armor exhibit even earlier, maybe from the time she entered the museum. “That jerk angel of death.”

This is a conversation. He should say something about that case, or the last one they worked with the map. Something about how her contributions continue to be vital.

Her phone announces an incoming text. “Sorry,” she says as she reads. “This client wants to push our meeting up from tomorrow evening to tonight. I have to run.” She stows the phone, pointing a finger at him. “Wait for Kitty to say she needs you. Otherwise, leave her alone, okay?”

“I am a champion in the area of self-restraint,” he replies.


	13. the cemetary trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> amindamazed prompted: first sentence: "Where were you?" (also heavily inspired by her fantastic writing)

Sherlock blinks ineffectually at Watson’s back. He didn’t expected her to react verbally to his presence so soon, not while still in the midst of her ministrations to Castoro’s grave. And her question requires more in the way of context before he can even attempt to answer.

“Over the summer,” she says, still staring at the headstone. “The last time I came here every day for over a month, where were you?”

He holds in his sigh. She hasn’t been quite herself since they were called to consult on a young woman shot to death while lying on an exam table in an outpatient plastic surgery clinic. Watson’s immediate withdrawal of her services came first as a surprise and then as a disappointment. Over the course of their working relationship, she investigated multiple cases that would have dredged up unwanted memories of her former profession. In his absence, she apparently retreated behind lines she had crossed at his side, moving back into her old comfort zone and setting up shop. While regression was understandable, her expertise was too invaluable and her progress too important for him to allow it to stand. He rummaged around in his brain attic, compiling methods that achieved results in the past, and waited for the next opportunity.

Then the comments started. Her demeanor shifted to something quiet and cutting, her side of most interactions honed to a razor sharp edge. After weeks, it’s finally becoming clear. The reminder of her dead patient also brought to mind a time he had offered his support. An offer, he would like to believe, that he would have honored before today, had he not left. “Watson, I apologized extensively for the way I exited.”

“Okay,” she says, disagreeing without presenting an overt challenge, and he casts about for the words he actually used in conjunction with his arrival. The speech he had planned, the one she circumvented by following his pseudonym to the brownstone, had included a heartfelt acknowledgement that he’d wronged her by dissolving their partnership and breaking off all contact. Now he can’t recall if he fit that passage in during their later discussions on the subject.

So he never said it, but does it matter? He demonstrated his good intentions in a myriad of ways in the months following, made certain through his actions that she understood how much he values her presence in his life and her contributions to Kitty’s education. She herself once cast aspersions on his apologies, calling them disingenuous, ill-timed… something to that effect.

“I’d appreciate it if you left.” There’s a thickness to her words, emotion building up in her throat, and he didn’t come to upset her, so he really should allow Watson her privacy. He glances at the back of her knelt form, his eyes falling on her fingers clenched in the grass. Completely unintentionally, he remembers.

“You’re still here,” she points out.

“You had blood on your hands,” he blurts out. Her head bows, her shoulders turn inward, and she crumples into herself.

“That night with Mycroft and the ex-pat physician, the night of your rescue. I smelled traces of blood. But no bandages.”

She climbs to her feet, brushing bits of grass from her knees. “Enough.”

“It wasn’t yours.” He directs his attention to the modest bouquet standing in the tiny vase and the lone white carnation placed next to it. Two dead patients. One lucky enough to be memorialized with a marked grave, one not. Oh, Watson.

She’d become so attached to Mycroft in such a short period of time, moving past the inherent dishonesty of his lifestyle to end up in his bed, going to pieces at the prospect of losing him in a way Sherlock had never seen her behave before. The extent of her devotion juxtaposed with her resolve to leave the brownstone had seemed so much like proof that she had chosen one brother over the other. Maybe she’d been mourning the loss of a lifeline that her partner had not managed to provide. “Watson…”

She backs away, pushing her hair out of her face with a laugh so bitter it turns his stomach. “I am not talking about this.”

“Watson.” Knowing he can’t reach out to her, he places his hand on his own chest. “I am so sorry.”

She walks past him, rubbing at her eyes, and he doesn’t so much as turn to watch her go. “Well,” he hears as she reaches the exit gate, “Now you’ve said it.”

He releases the air from his lungs. She’ll be back tomorrow. And so will he.


	14. joan and her would-be fiance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nairobiwonders prompted: First sentence "Dance with me"

Feeling the weight of polite, amused stares from people who had no idea she didn’t belong among them, Joan raised an unimpressed eyebrow at Chris. Then she took his outstretched hand and let him lead her to the dance floor.

“Our paychecks are a little high to be crashing a class reunion for the free dinner and entertainment, Dr. Santos,” she said through a clenched-jaw smile.

His grin showed an unsurprising lack of shame. “Come on, Marla,” he said, his eyes lighting up as he dropped the name on the tag he’d snagged for her from the reception table. “This is way more fun than ironing your sheets.”

She strangled the squawk in her throat, wary of attracting attention, and settled for a vicious pinch to his midsection. “I only do that when I have family staying over.” She was never telling him anything again.

He jerked away from her, chuckling, before resettling his body around hers. “This is more fun, though. Admit it.”

She aimed her smile at the parquet floor. It was.

“There’s something for you in my pocket,” he said.

“You keep trying to change my position on public sex. It’s not happening.”

“My chest pocket!” he said, laughing louder than he needed to. A few of Joan’s fake classmates turned their heads. She swatted his shoulder.

“Aren’t you even a little curious?” he crooned.

She rooted around the tiny pocket with two fingers and came out with a simple gold ring offset by a diamond. “Oh.” Her heart began to pound.

He smiled. “You seemed cool enough with the temporary name change.” He nodded at her name-tag. “How about something a little more long-lasting?”

He held her close, shifting to a full embrace, and she tried not to drop the thing between her fingertips. “Oh, God.”


	15. a clean break missing scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> time-converges prompted: First sentence "Someday, she would be able to sleep as long as she wanted to."
> 
> (a while back i was rambling about a clean break and i let slip that once or twice when joan was doped up in the hospital she mistook gregson for sherlock and amindamazed asked me to write it.)

That’s what Joan used to think, through college, med school, residency, and everything else. Every stage of her life, her heels have been dogged by the god of interrupted REM cycles. Slightly less so now. The nurses rouse her on a regular basis. At least they try, but even when they succeed she barely notices, dropping off before they can tell her they’re finished. The advantages of a four story fall, letting her get a taste of the life of leisure she always dreamed about.

She notices the straw before anything else, then the winter-pale hand it’s attached to. When she’s had enough water to loosen her tongue from the roof of her mouth, she blinks at the white, male blur. No ring and no beard, so it’s not her dad.

“What… happened.”

He starts going on about a fire escape and a man who tried to snatch his ex girlfriend’s child for revenge. Joan makes a face and bumps her one untethered hand against the cup to make him take it away. She wasn’t asking about herself. She knows her own story. “Someone lop off a finger this time? A foot?” Must be pretty catastrophic, to get him here after however long it’s been. “Sorry, left my suture kit at home, sorry.” She scratches her forehead, reveling in the sensation under her blunt fingernails, ignoring the tubes going every which way. “No ‘hello, I missed you’. Just 'fix my stab wound’.” If she thought really hard, she could come up with a worse way for him to come back into her life after disappearing the way he did, but she isn’t up to the challenge right now.

Her eyes are leaking. Almost every time she’s seen him in the last year, she’s fallen apart. It’s so humiliating. And all his fault. “Asshole.”

“You know, I wasn’t in love with your brother? But I liked him.” Mycroft was charming, well read, complimentary. He’d reminded her of prep school boys she met as a kid, unattainable to a gangly girl with a terrible haircut. But unlike them, he hadn’t considered her invisible. She sighs. “I like liking people.”

“Joan,” she hears. A hand takes hers, gently untangling everything and guiding it back to the bed. “Joan, it’s okay.” He replaces the canula she pushed away from her nose, dries her eyes with something soft.

'Joan?’ That’s just… wrong. He’s trying way too hard. “Gonna kick your ass when I get outta here.”


	16. loyalties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sanguinarysanguinity prompted: Three sentence fic: Joan and Gregson; AU where Joan has been allowed full emotional expression of every bad thing that has happened to her ever. (Yeah, that's right! I'm calling your bluff! Write me three sentences of something happy and fluffy!)

Gregson lets it slip so casually, like it doesn’t matter at all.

Joan is a little horrified. Also disgusted and, almost... betrayed. She shakes her head as she gets up leave. “I feel like I don’t even know you.”

He shrugs, fighting off a smile. “I can’t help how I was raised, Joan.”

“Yeah, but.” Joan pauses in the doorway. “The Cubs? I can’t believe that’s your team.”


	17. the long good-bye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> notablyindigo prompted: things you didn’t say at all  
> (sort of a spiritual first scene to a clean break)

sherlock sits in watson’s room. rather, he sits on a chair in a room that watson is currently occupying, but won’t be for long.

he opens his mouth, closes it.

she turns over in the bed she no longer wants.

he clears his throat.

she lets out a soft sound and goes still.

he gets to his feet, stares through the blinds. if a fire engine comes roaring through, she will wake.

nineteen minutes later (yes, he counted) he leaves the window, he exits the room.

a letter. his communication skills have always been less problematic in written form.


	18. fixing the nonsense that occurred in 4x07 - miss taken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> set about a year or so ago. the heart bled blue has no sex scenes or kung fu fights, but mary watson is still less than impressed with one grover ogden.

Henry notices the door of his office is open and does not have to wonder for even a split second what it means. He stiffens his spine and enters. Mary is at his desk. She looks up from the computer screen without a shred of shame.

Suddenly he can think of no better response than to pretend he doesn’t know what she knows. “What are you up to in here?”

“I wanted to see what you’ve been writing. As I told you yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. You never so actively avoided showing me before.”

“Listen, I’m less than 100 pages in. It’s not even close to being ready for your red pen.”

“Henry,” she says.

He sighs. She looks back calmly, with a growing hint of censure.

“How did you even read the file? It’s password protected.”

“Five letters that correspond to Oren’s birthday. Even I can hack that.” She rolls away from the desk and rises from the chair. “What could have possibly possessed you?”

He shakes his head weakly. “The lead character is named Dimitra. She’s a Greek woman from Sydney, Australia.”

“An intelligent, capable former psychologist who investigates a murder with the help of her uncle.”

Henry looks away.

“We’re having our daughter over for dinner the first evening that is convenient for her, and then you’re having a good, long talk.” She touches his face, and he closes his eyes for a moment. “We have discussed this. No using your stories to work out your issues with your family, manipulating us like clay so we’ll behave the way you wish we would. We’re here and we’re real and we’re the ones who get hurt by your thoughtlessness. You want to be part of Joan’s life? Do something about it with her.”

She walks past him and he watches her hair move from the displacement of air. “What about, um…”

She turns and looks at him firmly but not unkindly. “The book? That’s up to the real Dimitra, isn’t it? I’m going to call her now.”


End file.
